Just Jelly Beans and Jealousy (5 page)

He points a finger at his chest, and she nods
as she walks away.

“They know you here?” I ask.

He nods. Silence would be an easy thing to
get used to with this guy, I think.

The waitress returns with two root beers, two
straws, and a bowl of chips and salsa. “On the house,” she says as
she plops them down.

I dive for them like I’ve never seen food
before. Now that I think about it, I can’t remember if I ate
yesterday, either. Sometimes it’s like that. I get so busy
surviving that I forget to eat. Or I can’t afford it.

“How’s your brother doing?” the waitress asks
quietly.

He scribbles something on the board and shows
it to her.

“Chemo can be tough,” she says. “Tell him
we’re praying for him, will you?” she asks. He nods, and she
squeezes his shoulder before she walks away.

“Your brother has cancer?” I ask, none too
gently. I don’t realize it until the words hang there in the air.
His face scrunches up and he nods.

“Is he going to be all right?” I ask. I stop
eating and watch his face.

He shrugs.

“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

He nods.

“Is it the brother I met? A the tattoo
parlor?”

He shakes his head.

“How many brothers do you have?”

He holds up four fingers.

“Older? Or younger?”

He raises his hand above his head and shows
me two fingers. Then lowers it like someone is shorter than he is
and makes two fingers.

“Two older and two younger?” I ask.

He nods.

I wish I could ask him more questions.

He writes something on the board, and I sigh
heavily and throw my head back in defeat. This part of it is
torturous. I would rather have someone pull my teeth with a pair of
pliers than read. But his brother has freaking cancer. The least I
can do is try.

I look down at it, and the words blur for me.
I try to unscramble them, but it’s too hard. I shove the board back
toward him.

He narrows his eyes at me and scrubs the
board clean. He writes one word and turns it around.

You, it says. He points to me.

I point to myself. “Me?”

He nods and swipes the board clean. He writes
another word and shows it to me.

“Can’t,” I say.

He nods and writes another word. He’s spacing
the letters far enough apart that they’re not jumbled together in
my head, but it’s still hard.

My lips falter over the last word, but I say,
“Read.” Then I realize that I just told him I can’t read. “Wait! I
can read!” I protest.

He writes another word: Well.

He knows I can read. Air escapes me in a big,
gratified rush. “I can read,” I repeat. “I can’t read well, but…” I
let my words trail off.

He nods quickly, as though he’s telling me he
understands. He points to me and then at the board, moving two
fingers over it like a pair of eyes, and then he gives me a
thumbs-up.

My heart is beating so fast it’s hard to
breathe. I read the damn words, didn’t I? “At least I can talk!” I
say. I want to take the words back as soon as they leave my lips,
but it’s too late. I slap a hand over my lips when his face falls.
He shakes his head, bites his lip, and gets up. “I’m sorry,” I say.
I am. I really am.  He walks away, but he doesn’t take his
backpack with him.

While he’s gone, a man approaches the table.
He’s a handsome black man with tall, natural hair. Everyone calls
him Bone, but I don’t know what his real name is. I just know he’s
trouble. Everyone knows that.

“Who’s the chump, Kit?” he asks. The people
in this city who know me call me Kit. It couldn’t be farther from
my real name.

“None of your business,” I say, taking a sip
of my root beer. I fill my mouth up with a chip and hope he goes
away before Logan comes back. And I hope deep inside that Logan
will come back so I can apologize.

Logan slides back into the booth. He looks up
at Bone and doesn’t acknowledge him. He just looks at him.

“You got a place to sleep tonight, Kit?” Bone
asks.

“Yeah,” I reply. “I’m fine.”

“I could use a girl like you,” Bone says.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” It doesn’t pay to
piss Bone off. He walks away.

“You all right?” I ask Logan.

He nods, brushing his curls from his
forehead.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him. And I mean it. I
really do.

He nods again.

“It’s not your fault you can’t talk. And…” My
voice falls off. I’ve never talked to anyone about this. “It’s not
my fault I can’t read well.”

He nods.

“I’m not stupid,” I rush to say.

He nods again and waves his hands to shut me
up. He places a finger to his lips like he wants me to be
quiet.

“Okay,” I grumble.

He writes on the board, and I groan, visibly
folding. I hate to do it, but I can’t take it. “I should go,” I
say. I reach for my bag.

He takes the board and puts it in his
backpack. He gets it, I think. I’d rather play twenty questions
than I would try to read words.

He opens his mouth and I hear a noise. He
stops, grits his teeth, and then a sound like a murmur in a cavern
comes out of his mouth.

“You can talk?” I ask. He put me through
reading when he can talk?

He shakes his head and bites his lips
together. I shush and wait. “Maybe,” he says. It comes out quiet
and soft and his consonants are as smooth as his vowels. “Just
don’t tell anyone.”

I draw a cross over my heart, which is
swelling with something I don’t understand.

“What’s your name?” he asks. He signs while
he says it. It’s halting, and he has to stop between words, like
when I’m reading.

“People call me Kit,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “But what’s your name?”
he asks again.

I shake my head. “No.”

He nods again. The waitress brings the
burgers, and he smiles at her. She squeezes his shoulder again.

When she’s gone, I ask him, “Why are you
talking to me?”

“I want to.” He heaves a sigh and starts to
eat his burger.

“You don’t talk to anyone else?”

He shakes his head.

“Ever?”

He shakes his head again.

“Why me?”

He shrugs.

We eat in silence. I was hungrier than I
thought, and I clear my plate. He doesn’t say anything else, but he
eats his food and pushes his plate to the edge of the table. He
puts mine on the top of it and looks for the waitress over his
shoulder. I’m almost sorry the meal is over. We shared a
companionable silence for more than a half hour. I kind of like
it.

He gets the waitress’s attention and holds up
two fingers. He’s asking for two checks. I should have known. I
pull my money from my pocket. He closes his hand on mine and shakes
his head. The waitress appears with two huge pieces of apple pie. I
haven’t had apple pie since I left home. Tears prick at the backs
of my lashes, and I don’t know how to stop them. “Dammit,” I say to
myself.

He reaches over and wipes beneath my eyes
with the pads of his thumbs. “It’s just pie,” he says.

I nod because I can’t talk past the lump in
my throat.

Smart, Sexy, and Secretive

Book 2 in The Reed Brothers Series

Emily

My dad doesn’t want me to go back to New
York. He’s wholeheartedly opposed to it. But New York is where my
heart is. It’s where Logan is. And we’re in a plane on our way
there right now.

I met Logan in the fall. He took care of me
when I needed a place to stay, and I took care of him when his
brother got sick with cancer. Matt needed an expensive medical
treatment, and the only way to get the money was for me to suck it
up and take one for the team. So, I did. I went back to California,
leaving the only man I’ve ever loved in New York, and returned to
my estranged family—the one I’d run away from. Matt went into
treatment, paid for by my father, and Logan went on with his
life.

I have wanted to contact him so many times.
But talking is difficult between us. Logan is deaf, and he
communicates by writing. I have dyslexia, and reading is hard for
me. So letters and phone calls are not possible for us. The Reed
family is poor, and they don’t even have a computer. I considered
buying them one and shipping it to them, so Logan and I could talk
using sign language on Skype, but they are both poor and proud,
which is a killer combination.

It’s been almost three months since I last
saw Logan. It has been just as long since I’ve talked to him. I
want to look into his eyes. I need to see him. Soon.

The pilot announces that we’ll be arriving in
New York in twenty minutes over the intercom. Mom and Dad look over
at me. Mom is smiling; Dad is not. Dad’s bodyguard sets his
newspaper to the side and buckles his seat belt. My dad has money.
Lots and lots of money. My mom spends money. Lots and lots of
money. I am so glad my mom married my dad because no other man on
the face of the earth could ever afford her.

Dad owns Madison Avenue. Not the street—the
upscale clothing and accessory line. It’s a popular line of really
expensive items that started in California and has now spread
nationwide. My parents have more money than God.

“Are you excited, Emily?” my mother asks as
the wheels touch down. I take a deep breath. I can already breathe
easier just knowing I’m in the same city as him.

I look directly into her eyes since she knows
how much I love Logan, and she’s actually in favor of us being
together. “More than you know.”

“I don’t know why you feel the need to go to
college, Emily,” my father barks. “You could have just gotten
married and lived a life of ease and privilege.”

Last year, my dad tried to marry me off to
the son of one of his business partners. That’s why I left
California with nothing and took a bus all the way to New York. I
didn’t take a dime of my father’s money, and I supported myself by
busking in the subways with my guitar for change. My dad doesn’t
know everything about my life away from him. Like how I lived in
shelters when money was tight. And how I went for days without food
sometimes. He chooses to think I lived an upscale life while I was
away. But I didn’t. It was hard. I wouldn’t trade the experience
for anything, though. Because it’s what brought me to Logan.

God, I want to see him so badly. I want my
parents to go away, too, but they want to see me settled into my
new apartment. It’s around the corner from the college I’ll be
attending, Julliard. I’ve always wanted to study music, and now I
can. That was my mother’s doing.

My mother smacks my father on the arm. It’s a
breezy wave, but it gets his attention. “We’ve already discussed
this, darling. She doesn’t want to get married. Least of all to the
young Mr. Fields.”

I snort. I wouldn’t marry that ass if he were
the last man on earth.

“Fields is a fine young man,” my father says.
What’s really bad is that he believes it even though Trip is really
just an opportunistic asshole who wants to climb the financial
ladder, and he wants to use me as the top rung. He’ll never get
over this rung, I can say that much.

“Mmm hmm,” I hum noncommittally.

“Fields is an ass, darling,” my mother says.
She gets her purse, and we disembark the plane. The limo is waiting
for us outside, and we all slide in while someone I will never see
unloads the luggage.

“He blows his nose constantly, Dad,” I say.
“And he doesn’t shower after he plays basketball.” And he called me
stupid in front of all his friends. But we don’t talk about that
part.

My dad’s lips twitch. “That boy has a lot of
potential. Great vision. He would make a fine husband.”

What he means is that we could combine the
two families like a business deal, increasing the net worth of
both. I have no interest in being richer. In fact, the happiest
time in my life was when I lived with Logan and his brothers. He
has four of them—two older and two younger. They live alone since
their mom died and their dad left. They don’t have much, but they
love one another like crazy.

My parents love me, but it’s not the same
thing. Not by a long shot.

“You should partner with him, Dad. Because I
never will,” I grouse. I can’t count the number of times in the
past few months I have had this conversation.

My dad heaves a sigh. He is a master at
business, but he knows very little about relationships.

“Do you plan to see that boy while you’re
here, Emily?” my dad asks.

Only every chance I get, if he’ll have me. “I
doubt he’ll want to see me. I left him without a single word and
haven’t talked to him since.” He’s probably angry at me. So angry
that he has moved on. My heart lurches at the very thought of
it.

I knew that I was giving Logan up when my dad
paid for his brother’s treatment, but I didn’t think it would be
permanent. I look down at the tattoo on my inner forearm. My father
hates it; I love it. It’s a key with Logan’s name printed down the
shaft. Logan unlocked my world. He accepted and loved me exactly as
I am, or at least how he thought I was. I just hope he still
does.

It’s taking forever to get to my apartment. I
have to listen to my dad talk about how fit Trip would be as a
husband the whole ride. My mom makes a face at me. She makes me
laugh. We have a new understanding since I spilled my guts to her
after coming home. I think she gets it, and she’s on my side. But
that doesn’t make things any better with my father.

“If that boy is smart, he’ll stay far, far
away from you,” my father nearly snarls. He’s adamantly opposed to
me being with someone so poor.

Logan is rich in all the ways I wish I were.
He’s rich in family, steeped in love and compassion, and he loves
what he does for a living. Logan’s an amazing artist, and he works
at his family’s tattoo parlor, putting his fabulous art on people’s
skin. The last time I talked to him, he wanted to go back to
college. He got a scholarship, but he had to get a deferment when
Matt got sick. They took out a lot of loans to pay for Matt’s first
treatment, and when Matt couldn’t work anymore, Logan quit school
and took over for him.